


Lo, How a Crimson Lotus 'Ere Blooming

by SonjaJade



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Blood and Gore, Explosions, Gen, Mass Death, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 18:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10471599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/pseuds/SonjaJade
Summary: Kimblee takes a moment to remember his grandmother’s favorite song.





	

**Author's Note:**

> FMA Fic Contest Prompt: Dust and Blood
> 
> Saw this prompt and couldn’t think of anything. Saw it again after having recently heard “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” and I was STRUCK with inspiration. A Blooming Rose and a Crimson Lotus are quite similar, don’t you think? I used the German lyrics and the literal translations of them because of Amestris being loosely based on Germany and Ishval being loosely based on the Jewish people there. I will never hear this song the same again now.

It was best to watch from atop a building or a cliff, anywhere up high really.  Tonight Kimblee stood on a nearby ridge and simply listened.  It was a little quieter up here.  The sound of the whipping wind all but overpowered the gunshots peppering the rat’s nest below, and because the Flame Alchemist’s fires didn’t make explosions, simply conflagrated anything in sight, you couldn’t hear the _fwoom_ of his incinerations at all from up here, only see them as they blazed through the shell of Ishval.  
   
“Lo, how a rose e’er blooming, from tender stem hath sprung.”  This is what his instructor had said the first time Kimblee brought the alchemic symbol for his explosions to life at the age of twelve.  But his grandmother had sung it more beautifully than that white headed man had spoken it.  
   
Zolf closed his eyes and thought now of his grandmother.  She was a bitter and angry woman who detested men, including himself, and was prone to slapping anyone who got too close to her or truly pissed her off.  But there was one time he heard her singing.  It was an old church hymn in the old language, and he listened as her voice was transformed from crotchety old battleaxe to that of an angel…  He remembered clearly easing his way to sit under her window on her front porch, just so he could hear her.  His grandmother’s voice lilted gracefully and tenderly… something he was sure the old woman could never be in any sense of the word.   
   
While those first stanzas of the first verse were certainly true, his favorite verse now was the third.  He opened his mouth and sang into the wind, “ _Das Blümelein, so kleine, das duftet uns so süß,_ ” and brought his hands together slowly.  ‘The tiny bud that smells so sweet to us.’  The bloom of a small explosion rocked a group of Ishvallans to the dusty ground, sending splatters of blood onto everything close to the epicenter.  And from here, Kimblee could smell the coppery reds and burgundies…  His body tingled with satisfaction at the scent…  
  
“ _Mit seinem hellen Scheine, vertreibt's die Finsternis._ ”  ‘With its bright light, the darkness is dispelled,’ and indeed it was.  There was another clap, this one harder and the explosion bigger and more violent than the last.  The flash of the elements combusting in the dark and then setting fire to the bodies that remained chased all the shadows away.  
   
Kimblee smiled and began to sing louder as the wind kicked up, “ _Wahr Mensch und wahrer Gott!_ ”  ‘True man and true God!’  Was alchemy a gift from some supreme power to watch what man did with the power of God?  Or was it to prove to those who believed in God or Ishvalla or whatever that no god could be more powerful than man?  In either case, Kimblee thought himself both true man and true God…  
   
He brought his hands together again, hard, and a series of explosions scattered down a main thoroughfare.  “ _Hilft uns aus allem Leide…_ ”  'Protects us from all sorrow.'  And he did, by taking out a line of Ishvallan rebels who were making a rush at the mortar cannons.   
   
And then quiet drifted up to his ears and he smiled at the moonlight colored dots of the Amestrian soldiers.  “ _Rettet von Sünd und Tod._ ”  ‘Saves us from sin and death.’


End file.
